In Memoriam
by chemicalflashes
Summary: No one sees her but he sees everything. This is the story of the Quietest Gryffindor Ever and the Cameraman Of The School. [C. Creevey/L. Moon; Setting: Hogwarts years]
1. Chapter 1

[UNEDITED]

_A/N: This was written for the rare/weird pair challenge by OCDdegrassi on the HPFC Forum. The pairing in this is Colin Creevey/L. Moon. Moon is not an OC. In fact, she was a student in Harry's year whose full name was not heard during the sorting. The class list showed her name beginning with an 'Lil-', so I am assuming it to be Lilith. You can verify these facts on the HP Lexicon. This is __**the first story **__for this ship. What shall I name it? __**CoLith?**_

_**A/N 2.0: I am only 16! I may be writing stories for a long time, but I have only recently started to publish them, so consider me a beginner. Negative flames harm beginners like me! Understood?**_

**\- н -**

**In Memoriam**

**\- н -**

She is the littlest one of them all in her year - plain, old Lilith Moon, the one whose Hogwarts letter had come the most late, 15th August in fact. She's the chestnut haired, grey eyed girl who is a shadow in the shadows, the one who is rarely seen on the path to any kind of attention, the most peaceful and quiet of the Gryffindors - so quiet that even if you were listening intently, you wouldn't hear her nimble footsteps approaching you in the silence of the night.

She sits on her house's table in the the Great Hall beside the most famous know-it-all in her year, Hermione Granger and watches this year's sorting take place with her ever watchful eyes. Hermione is chattering on about something to Parvati Patil, but she isn't listening. Instead of that, she is watching a smallish boy with mousy brown hair with the ancient Sorting Hat upon his head. The boy looks very, _very_ nervous and her talent for finding out the minutiae tells her that he is slightly quivering. After a few seconds the Hat shouts 'Gryffindor' and the boy hurries to his assigned house's table. She claps along with her housemates.

He sits across from her and looks towards her for a moment or two. He is still nervous, she can tell. She can always tell such things but nobody ever asks her. She's _that_ isolated. Then he glances all over the table and the hall with the usual wonder struck look first years have. He sees her every now and then but doesn't do anything to start a conversation. It seems she will have to do something about it.

"Hello," she utters, somehow stowing away her constant veil of shyness "my name is Lilith Moon. What's yours?"

"I... I am Colin Creevey." He risks a brilliant smile and she does the same. "Well, welcome to Gryffindor, Colin." He just nods a little and both of them go back to staring randomly at random places and random faces. After a long while, sumptuous food appears on the clean table and then they stare at the delicacies laid out in front of them. 'I just talked to somebody on my will!' she thinks as she gracefully pierces her chicken salad with her fork and knife. He is fidgeting with his spoon and seems to be worried but she doesn't dare say anything further. She has gone through enough of social adventures in a single night.

**\- н -**

Over the course of past few weeks she has come to know that Colin Creevey not just loves photography; he lives it, breathes it like the oxygen around him. She has also seen with her very eyes that he practically worships the ground on which Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger and other 'celebrities' like Lockhart move upon. Not once has he spoken to her after his first night at Hogwarts. She hadn't thought him to be a follower like the rest. Maybe she has been proved wrong for once, though she is not sure about it as she has not talked to him even once during all those weeks.

It's evening and nearly dark as she stands in front of the Black Lake when she hears the distinct sound of footsteps approaching her from the behind. She doesn't bother to turn around. "Hey Lilith" he speaks lowly.

"Hi Collin. What do you want?"

"A photograph"

"A photograph?"

"Yes, of yours."

"Me? Why?"

"To keep you, as my aunt used to say, 'in memoriam'. Your were the first person who greeted me here and made me feel at ease. So yes, I want a photo of yours to keep you in my memory for a long time." His voice is calm and a very teensy blush is creeping up both of their cheeks. To say she is shocked would be an understatement. To say she wants to run away would be more like it.

"But I am no Harry Potter."

"It simply doesn't matter."

That statement breaks all her earlier beliefs regarding him. Maybe she isn't wrong after all. Maybe Colin isn't just a follower like the masses. He moves with the stealth of a cat, trying to determine the right angle to capture her heart shaped, rarely acknowledged but remarkable face which has been currently coloured a pale shade of amber due to the sunset. Messy brown hair frames it. At last he settles for the front view and clicks a perfect shot. She smiles a little for the sake of it and the blush on her cheeks makes her look like a nymph from the forests. "You know, you're making me feel like the actress I wanted to be." she says as he lowers his camera and checks on the lens. "An actress? Really?"

"Yep"

"Well I think you would have made a damn good one." Colin manages to reply. Lilith blushes even more and her cheeks are nearly as red as her scarlet scarf. "Thank you"

"You're welcome." He turns around, halts and then comes back right up to her. "Wait - wait - wait. You said that you wanted to be an actress. Are you a muggle-born too?"

"Yeah..."

"That's great! Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"Because you really weren't anywhere near me and running after various people. What could I do?"

"Sorry about that but that's Harry Potter we're talking about! I had heard and read so, so much about him that I couldn't resist meeting him and clicking his photos for evidence that I have really meet him." She rolls her eyes mischievously. "Do you realise that you just sounded like a girl fed with amortentia?"

"No. Anyway, I want to know where you come from, what do your parents do and what school you went to. I want to know every detail! Come on, don't dismay me. You must understand that it is hard to come by muggle-borns." He blabbers on, growing nervous in the end.

She laughs. She laughs at his bewildered expression, his nervousness, his innocence and everything that is Colin. He doesn't understand why she is doing that. 'Her laugh - it is beautiful like the ring of the first note from a finely tuned piano' is the first thought that enters his mind. He quickly does away with that notion. "Where do I come from? I am from Abington Street, Plymouth but originally from Dublin. What do my parents do? My father died when I was young, so I guess he looks us up from above and my mother is a cook at the restaurant down the street." Here she halts for a little breath. "I am sorry about your father." he says in that breath's short duration.

"Don't be. Where was I anyway? Ah yes - What school I went to? There's no answer to that as I was home schooled." she finishes with a smile. "What about you?" she adds.

He scratches the back of his head awkwardly while strongly gripping his faithful camera in the other hand. "What can I say? I was Colin Creevey, the milkman's son before an owl zoomed through our small parlour's window and gave me a letter which stated that I was a wizard and that was when I understood the reason behind the strange things I did and...now - now, I am here."

"Are we friends now?" she asks suddenly and he's slightly taken aback by the awkward suddenness.

"Weren't we friends before?" he asks with a quizzical brow.

"I don't know but now - are we?"

"Well yes, of course we are!"

They shake hands firmly. It is tentative but it is something for the lonely girl and the starstruck boy and everyone knows that something is always better than nothing.

**\- н -**

This is a few months after that fateful evening. She rushes to the hospital wing, frantic on her heels. Her only friend has been petrified and lying like a statute in a bed in the medical wing. She tiptoes across the passage, like she always does and nobody notices her, like they always do. "Oh Colin" she whispers softly as she grips his frozen arm which in turn is gripping his camera.

"Why did you have to roam around? Couldn't you be happy with the Common Room?" she continues, whispering like before. The light from the windows doesn't do anything to wake him up, like it would have if he had just been asleep and not magically petrified. A single lone tear drop falls from her left eye and settles on his nearly lifeless cheek. The tear persists to sit there as she walks away noiselessly with sorrow and eons of loneliness filled in her heart. A few weeks later when he wakes up, he sees blinding sunlight and numerous dark spots prance across his field of vision and then - _her - _Lilith, standing by his bed. He reaches out his now free hand towards her and suddenly Lilith changes into Madam Pomfrey and then he realises that he has imagined the whole thing. Collin groggily shifts himself into a sitting positon by leaning his back on the pillow. Madame Pomfrey is going on about something and he can't make out the words clearly.

After a short while he understands that the old nurse is asking how he was feeling. "Just fine." She nods and goes away to the aide of Hermione Granger beside him. Colin is feeling dejected for not seeing her on waking up and he pulls the sheets over his head again. He doesn't want to get out, not yet. Maybe he would've if Lilith had been present but reality states she's not there and hence he drifts into a sleep. That evening, at the feast people see Hermione hugging Harry and shaking hands with Ron. Then they applaud for Hagrid's return.

They're so busy in these actions that all of them, except Dumbledore fail to see the Quietest Gryffindor Ever hugging the Cameraman Of The School in the far corner of the Great Hall. She tells him the whole story as they walk towards their noisy table and this time, they sit side-by-side. Colin is awestruck at seeing Harry and now that he has learnt that he killed the Basilisk, he can't help but throw a torrent of questions towards the boy. Lilith leans back in her chair and watches the exchange with an amused glint in her perse eyes and if her eyes had been camera lenses, she would have captured the scene with a small _click_ and now she just smiles and smiles and smiles, content to watch Colin Creevey, her first best friend - alive.

**\- н -**

**End of chapter notes -**

**I'll be adding more chapters, one for each year. I hope you liked the first installation.**

**And for the love of Draco Malfoy, leave a review on this story. Thank you. **


	2. Chapter 2

[Unedited]

_A/N: So here's chapter two! Why aren't more people reviewing? _(T_T)

_Anyway, I really want to thank two people so much - __**OCDegrassi**__ and __**AvengersShieldBellatrixWhovian**__ for leaving such delightful reviews!_

_There are some appearances by some of my favourites from the seven major characters of HP in this installation._

**\- н -**

**In Memoriam**

_**Chapter 2**_

**\- н -**

To the ordinary eye it may seem that Colin is roaming aimlessly around the castle but he knows that if Lilith's hiding somewhere nearby she would immediately realise that his walk is not at all aimless. Little does he know that she's really hiding nearby. It's his second year here and he wants everything to be quieter and easier than his first year. He doesn't want to be petrified like last year and land in the medical wing for some weeks. So, he's suspicious of every dark corner and he treads lightly through the stone hallways. This year there are Dementors to watch out for. Colin suspects that he is suffering from some mild form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but he isn't sure. He's very thankful to Harry for killing the Basilisk but he would have loved it more if he could have been the one to shove the sword down it's vicious throat.

After all, the darn beast's sight had melted his new roll of film - the whole of it!

He knows that Lilith thinks that he mad for even imagining such horrid things but he doesn't let her logic get to him. People may think him to be a fanatic follower but they are mistaken, because for once he wants some acknowledgement too and he's glad that she understands that he isn't a foolish fan but what she doesn't understand is that sometimes it's good to be illogical and he would teach that to her someday but that day is not today as today he is searching a subject for his photo and none is seeming to strike him as good enough. He has tried the hanging vines, the gentle lapping waves of the Lake and the amber shades of the sky but nothing seems to be working. He can't point out the reason why they're not appealing to him. Is because he has lost interest? (Nope, cancel that out, he is Colin Creevey - _the _Photographer) Or is it because he wants to photograph Lilith in her worn out, floral frocks, her hair filled with her numerous flowers transfigured from goblets; he wants -

Lilith - walking towards him with the vacant expression she usually has. She waves and rushes over to him like a wallowing sea tide. He catches her arm reflexively.

"Lilith, I was err..._wondering_ if you could do - How do I say..."

"Come on! Out with it!"

"Pose for me?"

Her eyes widen. "Colin Creevey, I understand that you're a photographer but what I don't understand is why you always end up coming to me these days. It isn't as if -" She could never complete what she was about to say since a proud voice has just decided to drawl at that very moment.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the filthy mudbloods from Potter's fanclub."

And with that, Draco Malfoy has entered the quiet hallway and broken their conversation. It seriously peeves her how Malfoy, a boy who is not even in her house, knows more about her and Colin's life than their own housemates bother with. She half suspects him to make lists of people in the school and then categorise them on the basis of their blood status. "It's muggle-born, Malfoy, not mudblood but of course you wouldn't know that since you weren't brought up properly with manners." retorts Colin whose is irritated beyond measure. He's also very angry at him for interrupting his work. The other boy whips out his wand.

"How dare you question my upbringing, Creevey! _Imperid–_"

She's fast, always has been. Exploiting this trait, Lilith sprints forward at light speed before Malfoy can complete the jelly legs jinx. In her furious haste, Lilith has landed a sharp kick on his stomach and made him fall on the stony ground with a soft _thud _where he is currently clutching his pained abdomen. She may be shy, but not in the face of dire circumstances. From behind her, Colin does a disarming spell and soon Malfoy's wand is in his hands.

"Let's see Malfoy what we gave you - internal as well as external injuries and a highly shattered ego. Aren't we mudbloods so capable?" she speaks. He sneers as he looks down upon the nasty pureblood and suddenly his eyes sparkle with some plan and he quickly takes some photos of the bruised git. She smiles at what he is doing. Unable to do anything, the boy stands up as regally as he can, snatches his wand from Colin's grip, turns the other way around, shouts his usual go to phrase - 'My father will hear about this!' and rapidly walks away. 'And I will have that muggle contraption banned. You just wait!' he adds from a distance. They're not perturbed by his threats; they know he can't do anything.

"Well wasn't that fun. What you did was superb!" he says.

"It was but I still can't believe that I... kicked him. I've never done that before."

"Don't fret. Now who will help me spread these controversial documents?" He winks and she reddens.

"Of course it will be me."

**\- н -**

The photos of his are a phenomenal success in the Gryffindor Common Room where everyone laughs upon seeing them. From there the success grows even more as the photos have reached to all the common rooms, even the Slytherin one, where Gemma Farley, Theodore Nott and Daphne Greengrass laugh each time their eyes happen to fall upon them. Everyone wants a glimpse of the shattered Draco Malfoy. Colin doesn't tell them how he found the boy in such a scandalous state in the first place as he has been asked to do so by Lilith, who doesn't want sudden popularity and recognition from people who don't bother to look twice at her for the better part of her stay at the school. Whenever the two of them encounter him anywhere, they just grin and he scowls fiercely, much to the amusement of both of them.

It's afternoon and Colin is walking towards the Defence Against The Dark Arts classroom which he has with the Ravenclaws. Professor Lupin has told them that he would be making them do the repelling charm these days in cue with the third years. Lilith has told him at breakfast that her bogart was the body of her dead mother and it was very horrible to see it. He doesn't want his to be a dead person. Colin begins counting his fears in his mind as he walks towards the classroom but can't quite point out his deepest, darkest fear. Perhaps this fear is much more deeply rooted into his subconscious. A few minutes after he reaches his destination, the professor makes them say aloud the strange incantion of the spell. When satisfied with their pronunciation, he orders them to form a line in front of the bogart closet and wait for their turn. The expression on Professor Lupin's face tells all the students that he knows that they don't want to wait for their turn at all and that in fact, they want to run away at the first instance.

The first one to go is Luna Lovegood, a strange girl from Ravenclaw whom he thinks is a little out of it but doesn't mind having around. The closet opens with a slight creak and out hops an old man whom he recognises as the Chief Editor of The Daily Prophet, shouting, "The Quibbler is a load of rubbish!" From the back of the line he can barely make out that Luna has moved a little backwards. "_Riddikulus!_" she screams after a while and the person suddenly becomes a clown. "Good job" comments their professor and the girl walks her way to the back. Colin wants the class to be over already. He's standing behind lots of people and maybe his turn would not come today but alas, his thoughts are proved wrong when the closet comes into his view.

He stands very still for a few seconds and nothing happens but then the rickety doors open with their horrifying creak and then out comes -

Lilith, walking towards him, except this time there's no vacant expression on her face and she looks very pained. Her normally rosy skin is a deathly pale. He watches with terror as this strange version of his best friend nears him and murmurs break out in the crowd behind him. Not many can identify this girl but all of them are terrified by how she is moving with wispy, wobbly steps. Her perse eyes bore into his and she speaks in a ghostly voice, "You let me down, Colin." and here, she falls. Her fall reveals a metal knife embedded into the bloodied floral cloth covering her torn back. He can't help it and gives out a feral, animalistic cry of 'No, No, No!' Firm hands grip his shoulders and a calm voice orders him to shut up. "Say the incantation now!" shouts the same voice. After a few more minutes he manges to say it and the body turns into a flower bed. He knows that a bed of flowers isn't funny but it's the best he can manage in such a terrifying situation.

Without any word he moves to the back and falls against the wall. A sweat has broken on his forehead and he hastily wipes it away. Luna, who had been talking to Ginny till now, comes over to him with tentative steps, though her lack of expression and huge grey eyes hide this tentativeness. "Colin?" she says. She hadn't meant it as a question but it comes out like that.

"Yes, Luna?" he replies with his eyes closed and forehead leaning against the cool wall.

"You must tell Lilith."

At this his eyes snap open. "How do you know her name?" he asks her in what he thinks is a demanding tone.

"The Nargles, Colin, the Nargles...they tell me everything..."

"What? What are you going on about?"

"Pesky, little creatures which - Nothing, leave it. Just remember to tell Lilith."

And just as she had come, she walks away, leaving him to suffer with the choices doing a vicious dance in his young mind.

**\- н -**

That night at the dinner, he avoids talking to anyone, even his idol, Harry. He just picks his food listlessly and drops it down, only to do the process over and again. He looks lost as he stares at the floating candles high up above them. His brown eyes are not sparkling today and they look melancholic. She senses that something is seriously wrong with him but doesn't bother him until much later.

That night, he sits by the warm fire of the common room. She watches from afar as he stares at the fire glowing in the purple shadows of the dark room. Slowly gathering courage and hoping that he wouldn't lash out at her in desperation, she walks towards him, puts a hand on his shoulder, bends down to sit on her knees beside him and finally asks the question she has wanted to get out from her system the whole time.

"What happened?"

He doesn't say anything.

"Why aren't you talking to anyone?"

No response. She's growing progressively more and moe frustrated.

"At least talk to me! What crime have I committed to suffer this silent treatment?"

He turns his face away from the fire and his eyes are glistening with some tears in the firelight as they bore into hers. "Becoming my bogart." he replies lowly.

"What?"

_What!_

He doesn't give any further answers and just wounds his arms around her and buries his head in her chestnut curls. She hugs him back but doesn't quite understand the depth of emotion behind this sudden embrace until she hears his next words.

"Don't ever, _ever _leave me Lilith." he speaks in her mass of hair as she strokes soothing circles with her fingers on his back and then he cries. _Cries_. All the time she has known him, the saddest expression that his face has shown is that of hurt and nothing more than that but now Colin Creevey is crying in her arms and holding her like she's his most precious possession. His takes in tiny gulps of air every now and then and his torrent of tears is wetting her shirt but she doesn't think about that and continues to soothe him. Lilith wonders what she has done as bogart to upset him so much that he's broken down. 'Whatever it is, it must be something bad.' she remarks internally. He extracts his head from her hair and lets his hands roam all over her back, her arms and finally her cheeks to make sure that she's real. It's a strange sensation - the feeling of his hands resting on her cheeks and it travels through the whole of their bodies with a shiver.

His eyes are again glistening, but this time it's not due to the tears, it's something else and she can't place it. His soft looking lips are some mere centimeters away from hers and then he's moving in and her face heats at the thought of what is about to happen but then they hear the crude sound of the portrait hole opening up and someone's steps heading into the room. They spring apart, shock written on their faces. Suddenly the fire feels a lot warmer, in fact it is positively burning. They hurriedly stand up to see The Boy Who Lived looking at them. "Hi!" they squeak in unison, afraid if he has seen anything. He replies with a 'Hi' too and his face doesn't give any indication as to how much he knows.

After he has gone they look at each other, blush thoroughly and literally run in their respective dormitory's direction.

It's going to be a long year.

**\- н -**

They have their silent pact in order even after all these months. The pact is, 'You don't mention the bogart and I won't mention the almost kiss!'

She is proud that such a silly thing has not hindered their friendship but she's not sure how long it would be like that. At the end of the year feast, they are talking and eating and being what they are - friends but she can't help but think that a storm is on the horizon.

**\- н -**

**End of chapter notes -**

**So how was it? Can I expect more reviews. Lilith and Colin would like that. ; )**

**I just can't wait for the next chapter. Can you?**


	3. Chapter 3

[UNEDITED]

_A/N: Yay! Chapter 3 is here, I couldn't wait to write it! I just love the fourth year. Don't you? Well... This isn't about the fourth year, but rather set in the months before it begins._

**I want to say a big thank you to all the lovely people who reviewed on this story.**

**\- н -**

**In Memoriam**

_**Chapter 3**_

**\- н -**

Lilith is washing the dishes in the kitchen of her small home in muggle Plymouth. Just above the sink is a large, open window through which she is looking out as she does the washing. She is lost in her thoughts about a certain camera wielding wizard when the door bell rings. She opens up the door to see her tired mother come home after doing her morning shift at the restaurant where she works. Mrs. Moon gives her daughter a weak smile and collapses in the drawing room's squeaky sofa after kicking off her shoes.

"How was your day, mum?"

"Oh nothing, the usual, harrumphing customers and long lines. Did lots of orders today. Could you give me a hand with supper today, dear. It seems I am too tired."

"Of course, mum. I would be happy to do."

"And Lil?"

"Hmm"

"Would you like to work as a waitress for the rest of your vacations? They're offering six pounds a day."

"Six pounds! Count me in."

"That's my girl! I will call Becka to tell her the good news. I think you would start this evening at five when my evening shifts begins."

"Five, four, three, I don't care, just give me those six pounds already!"

Lilith does a little victory dance and her mother laughs at her antics.

**\- н -**

She hadn't expected three inch high heels as a part of the uniform. She has never worn such painful things before and can't believe that the women of the world willingly sacrifice their legs to such fatally tortuous devices. While she has been to her mother's workplace before as a young child, what she remembers of it doesn't match with the image laid out in front of her. There are much more tables and chairs than she has in her memory. A call from her mother distracts her from her musings and she rushes to her. The rush hour of six to nine has just begun.

Lilith is handed over a huge tray and she somehow manages to carry it over to table number twenty four. Her feet are very wobbly from this trip and she can't think of lasting another three hours in these murderous shoes. For the next two hours she takes orders and serves them and by the time it's eight she's bending down with nearly each step to massage her aching calves. Six pounds be damned! At eight-thirty she collapses against a wall in the kitchen where she is ordered by Marla, one of her mother's colleagues to send a tray to table number fifteen.

The frail girl makes her way through the bustling alleys and frenzied crowds of the restaurant to table number fifteen where she is shell shocked, utterly confused and stupendously stupefied to see a certain Colin Creevey. Hotness rises up her cheeks to see him in such an unpredictable environment. The people who are sitting with him don't seem to be his parents as they are rather young, some eighteen or nineteen years old and she wonders if they are his cousins since they all possess the same shade of brown hair. She approaches the four of them with all the courage the Gryffindor in her can summon.

"Here's your order sir." she speaks to the boy who looks the eldest to her. "Would you like anything else?"

"Well... Col here was telling me he would like a coffee to go with it." he replies. She stares at Colin; can't he see that see's dying in these heels? She somehows brings up her left hand which has been itching to go back to relive her calf to her notepad and notes the secondary order. She throws him a glare when she thinks none of the others are looking and goes back to the kitchen with his order. She is wrong to think that nobody has looked because somebody has really looked in. "What's up with you and that girl?" pipes up Colin's cousin, Ruth. "Yep, what's up with her?" says his little brother, Dennis as he joins in with a rather mischievous, implicating sort of tone. Colin taps him lightly on the head.

"Nothing the sort you're implying, you foolish kid. I don't even know her."

"Her glare was another story." says Ernest, the eldest cousin who had given the order.

"Okay, well I _sort of_ know her. She's my classmate at school. Awfully quiet. Never caught her name."

"You mean from Hog- err the Harding School?"

"Yep" he replies, maintaining his cool. He is glad that his brother corrected himself in time. His muggle cousins absolutely cannot know about Hogwarts. The rest of the meal is relatively calm. He tries not to notice her comings and goings but in the end, he ends up doing exactly that. At nine minutes to fifty five, his meal is properly finished while the others still continue to eat. His gaze is lazily fixed at the entrance without any purpose but then he sees her exiting with a raincoat donned upon her waitress uniform. She is going to walk home since her mother can't allow her to drive the car. "I am going home." he abruptly announces and rushes out to catch up.

"I bet he's going to meet the girl." Dennis speaks between mouthfuls.

"No, need to bet Deni. I _know_ he's going to meet _his_ girl." Ruth informs them in her wise voice and goes back to eating her meal peacefully.

"She's his girl indeed. Look, he has left his umbrella." says Ernest and he chuckles quietly.

Once outside the restaurant, Colin follows Lilith and starts running to catch up with her in the pouring rain when he's completely certain that they are a long way from the restaurant. His footsteps are loud and create noisy splotches in numerous puddles and he wonders how hers are so quiet even with those pencil heels. Due to the loudness of his footsteps she spins around fast and in doing so, she slips and loses her balance. Luckily her quickness has rubbed off upon him and he literally catches her mere inches from the ground.

"Hello, Lilith." he says, centimetres away from her face, just like that night by the fire, only this time not fire, but lightening is gleaming in his eyes.

"Hi..." she manages to say shakily and removes herself from his grasp. Their position is a too soon reminder of that night and the dreams it holds. Instead of commenting on anything related to that, she says, "What are you doing here, Colin?"

"I...am visiting my aunt and uncle. They live nearby."

"Why am I knowing this now?" she says over the noise of the thunder.

For a few moments, he doesn't reply, partly because he couldn't hear her question properly and partly because he's mesmerised by her rain kissed face, her tiny curls sticking out from the hood of the raincoat and her lips... Her lips are just pink and oh, so lovely and he just wants to grab her in his arms and kiss her deeply till infinity and beyond but of course he doesn't do anything like that, it's too soon and it would be too desperate and foolish on his part and he doesn't want to appear either of them. No boy does. Little does he know that the same thoughts are whirling around in her mind.

At last he says something just for the sake of saying something.

"Because I... Forgot?"

It's the truth after all.

"Anyway, how foolish of me, asking all this when I should be leading you to dryness in this monstrous wet weather. Come. Quick!"

She leads him towards the block where she lives. It's a very old building and reminds him of his own home in Devonshire. "Sorry but the lift is dysfunctional. We will have to take the stairs." He nods and follows her up the stairs. The climb is slow and torturous on her feet. She half wants to throw away the damned shoes and continue bare feet but she also doesn't want to have her feet dirtied. It's a tough life for Lilith Moon. They go up and up and up until they reach the last floor - the fourth one. She shoves the key into the lock's small mouth and kicks away the heels and sheds her raincoat at the first instant.

Now she understands why her mum drops down on the sofa straight after coming from work - it's so tiring and she's extremely sure that it is triply tiring with heels. She walks with flimsy steps and lands on the sofa. Behind her, Colin closes the door and switches on the lights. Her hand fumbles for the heater's switch behind the sofa. At last she finds it and hits the button on. He sits on the beside sofa beside her.

"Your mother, where is she?"

"She's still at the restaurant."

"Then how come you're here?"

"It was my first day, so they let me off a little early."

"Oh, I was about to ask that - What were you doing as a waitress there."

They fall into a small, uncomfortable silence and no syllable wants to leave from any of them. She fidgets with her skirt and he pretends to be extremely interested in the mozaic flooring. Suddenly, she gets up and motions him to follow her. A few minutes later he finds himself in the bathroom with a towel and a clean set of clothes which he assumes is her father's as they are rather loose on his bony frame. When he emerges from the bathroom all dry and fresh, he's amazed at the sight he encounters. Lilith is standing in front of him, wearing one of her worn out, floral frocks which he adores so much and she is drying the fringes of hair which had been wetted earlier by the ongoing rain. And this is what about her that pleases him extremely - her simplicity. He's sure most of the girls won't give the clothes she wears a second glance as he estimates them to be rather old but she not only wears them but makes them flatter her form. He's spellbound with her and his eyes can't drink enough of this sight. She's _that _magical.

For Colin Creevey, Lilith Moon is sheer magic.

"Call your kin and inform you won't be coming home tonight. I'll not let you go out in this type of weather." she says and the spell is broken. "The telephone is on the refrigerator in the kitchen."

"Okay" he replies calmly but he is anything but calm. His whole soul in reeling in chaos at the prospect of spending the night in her house. 'Her house, her house, her house!' his mind screams repetitively, over and again. It seems that once he is outside Hogwarts with her, his mind has taken a whole new route regarding that almost kiss. With an iron clamp he represses these feelings on his way to the telephone. With shaking fingers, he dials the number of his aunt's home. He hopes his aunt or uncle to pick up but as usual, his hopes are shattered and he finds Dennis at the other end. Colin sighs.

"Hey, Deni, first of all, don't touch my camera in my absence and second, tell Aunt Flora that I bumped into a friend on the way back and now I would be staying the night at said the friend's house."

"Okay I will tell her that and I wish you a great snog fest with that friend!"

"Deni! What in Circe's name are you trying to say! The said friend is a boy, therefore no snog fest! Just shut up!" he shouts in embarrassment, completely forgetting that he's in the friend's house with whom his little brother is wishing him a great snogging session.

"Whatever you say, brother, whatever you say." he hears along with a brief, mischievous chuckle and the connection cuts off with a beep. "What the hell." he mutters and turns around, only to see a blushing Lilith at the entrance to the kitchen. "Uh... Pay no attention to what I just yelled!" he exclaims with wide eyes and runs out, towards the safety of the drawing room. He can't wait for her mother to arrive or he just might pick her up, push her up against the nearest wall and have the snogging session his little brother had just suggested. He berates his brain for creating the sensational mental images at that thought. To say it's an utterly compromising situation would be an understatement. To say it's the longest half hour of his life would be more like it.

He needs to be at Hogwarts; the atmosphere there doesn't promote such thoughts, he is certain of that.

She works around in the kitchen, trying to fix some supper and comes up with what she can find in the refrigerator - cheese sandwiches. She offers him some but he refuses, citing a full stomach. A glance at the clock reveals it to be a quarter past ten. Lilith is worried, her mum's car should have been downstairs by now and she should have been resting in their common bedroom but reality states that neither of these events have happened till now. At half past ten, the telephone rings. It's her mother.

"Lilith, I want you to stay calm and listen. Marla's water has broken. Her husband is on the way but it seems he's struck in a jam. I am taking her to the hospital. I'll be back in the morning, I think."

"Okay mum. Tell Marla I wished her good luck for the labour." she replies. What else could she say? Her mum tends to be a very helpful creature at times.

"Okay I will tell her but I have a feeling you want to tell me something."

Is something wavering in her voice to let her mother know that she's hiding something, or rather someone, she wonders.

"No there's nothing. Bye mum!"

Oh dear Lord, what kind of terror has she brought upon herself? She will have to spend the night with Collin Creevey as she can't kick him out once she has invited him in, can she? Besides the weather outside is too bad for traveling on foot now. She emerges from the kitchen, extra pale and extra white.

"Mum will not be returning till morning." she informs him in a matter of fact voice. In seconds, his skin is as pale and white as hers. He has no idea what to do - whether he should jump up and perform cartwheels or hide in a dark corner from the shame.

"Oh" is all he can say.

They somehow cut the rest of the time till midnight by watching the television and talking of their classes at Hogwarts but when sleep starts its calling, it's time to make a tough a decision. She couldn't let him sleep on the couch. It would be too uncomfortable but she sure as hell wasn't inviting him to lie down in her bed, it would be too... Intimate. So the question is, 'Who would sleep on the bed and who would rot on the ground with thin bedding?'

"Why can't I sleep in your mum's bedroom?" he says sleepily when she asks him the aforementioned question.

"Look around Colin, do you see a door to another bedroom? No, you don't! There's only one bed in this house."

'What have got myself in.' he thinks.

"Okay, I understand. I have a deal."

"Go on." she replies, suspicious.

He procures a penny from his trousers which are currently drying on the heater by the couch.

"Heads, _you _win. Tails, _I _win." he says in such a rush that she assumes it to be the other way around.

"I agree."

He smirks and does the toss. The outcome is Heads but since she has got it the other way around, she assumes that he has won the bed.

"It's unfair!" she cries irritated and for a moment he is startled by thinking that she has caught his trick. "This is my room for Merlin's sake!" she adds with a huff. He takes in a deep breath; he hasn't been caught after all.

"Rules are rules." he informs her cheekily, all sleep gone.

"At least you will help me pull out the bedding from the almirah?"

"Well, I guess I can."

She leads him to the bedroom and opens up the cupboard where the bedding is stored. He notices that the room is rather simple and he is glad to see that hideous pink wallpapers are not decorating the wall. On one corner of the small room is a small desk where loads of books are stacked up. She asks him entangle his fingers from both hands in a sort of a fist, so that she can step up. He does as he is as asked and she steps up on his bundle of interlocked hands and reaches for the mass of cloth. The bedding is more heavier than she had initially thought and balancing herself is getting more and more difficult by the second. At last, her feet lose their grip on his hands and she tumbles straight into the ring of his arms. The bedding lands safely beside them on the floor with a soft, muffled sound. For a few seconds they just stare at each other. Then his gaze drops to her pink lips. She notices this startling change. His brown eyes are digging tunnels into her own grey ones, sifting through the depths of her soul.

His eyes light up and the digging ceases.

He moves in.

She lets him.

**\- н -**

They're kissing.

_Kissing._

Colin Creevey is kissing her and she is letting him do it. He gently pushes her against the wall and deepens the kiss. His lips are so warm and oh, so soft against hers. This is a first kiss for both of them but strangely, he isn't making her feel awkward at all. She wounds her lean fingers around the back of his head and pushes him even closer to her. He loses his fingers in her chestnut curls. It is when he tilts her head and removes the hair covering her delicate, pale, white neck and lowers the broad strap of her frock to reveal her milky skin to the cool night air that she comes to her right senses and pushes him away.

The shock on his face tells her that he too hadn't intended for this to happen. With highly red cheeks, they scramble into their respective beds and stay awake for a long, long time but don't say anything out of fear of ruining everything.

**\- н -**

When Amelia Moon reaches her home at seven that morning, she's suprised to see her daughter sleeping on the floor but she's even more suprised a boy sleeping in their bed.

She smiles.

**\- н -**

**End of chapter notes -**

**Uh...so they kissed.**

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**HAPPY.**


	4. Chapter 4

[UNEDITED]

_A/N: The fourth year... *Makes lovey dovey eyes...*_

_A huge thank you to all the lovely people reviewing this silly tale of mine._

**\- н -**

**In Memoriam**

_**Chapter 4**_

**\- н -**

He cracks open his eyes to see a faint silhouette of a woman standing in the doorway. He wants to close his eyes again but then the woman begins speaking something and then everything about last night promptly rushes into his mind. "Last I checked," the woman says in a loud noise, which he knows is meant to wake them up. "I hadn't adopted a boy. So, who are you?" she continues. He jolts awake and sits up with the speed of light. He fleetingly notices that Lilith is rousing up from her sleep too. Throwing the quilt away, he stands up on shaky feet.

"I can explain Mrs. Moon. It was raining and she took me in and one thing led to another..." he is rambling from shame.

"My dear boy, I just asked your name, no explanations. The one who should do any explaining would be this young lady." She looks in Lilith's direction, who is now standing and looking at the floor with bright, pink cheeks. "Do you happen to be the great Colin Creevey?" she adds.

'My, my, isn't her mum too intuitive for her own her good?' he remarks internally.

"Well, yes I am," he smiles weakly "just remove 'the great' part."

"Good to meet you at long last. She babbles incessantly about you."

_She babbles about me? That too incessantly?_

"And now young lady, why didn't you tell me of this development last night? I was suspicious, you know." she asks in a crisp manner.

"I thought you might not approve." she replies readily in a courageous tone, though her gaze is still fixed at the floor.

"I might have, dear. You never thought that. Anyway what has been done, has been done and one should not cry over split milk. Fix up yourselves and come up for breakfast."

"What about Marla, mum?"

"I'll you the story when you come. Now hurry, because if you're late, you would find me asleep on the sofa with all the food gone. I've had a long, tiring night after all." Mrs. Moon smiles yet again and goes out. As soon as she is out, Lilith hisses to turn his attention from the open door to herself. "Whatever happened last night, didn't happen." she says while smoothing down the creases in her frock. "We were sleep deprived and absolutely not in our minds."

"Oh, but from what I remember," he counters, "you were right there by the almirah, very much in your right mind when your decided to pull me closer, or did your 'sleep deprived' hands decide that by themselves?" It is the most courageous statement he has ever made in his life, and the most consequential one too.

"How dare you imply it was my fault Colin Creevey! _You _were the one who initiated _that _in the first place." She's seething.

"Look at yourself, referring to a simple kiss by a frightened 'that'."

"I am not frightened and that was not 'simple'. Why don't you agree that it was your bloody fault and we just forget it."

"It was not only my bloody fault. Tell you what Lilith, talk to me when you are _really_ in your right mind or don't talk at all!" He rushes out to collect his now dried clothes from the heater.

"Who wants to talk to you anyway!" she calls after him.

In less than two minutes, he's ready and out of the entrance door. He speeds by Mrs. Moon, who nearly drops away her plates.

"Where are you going?" she asks him.

'Away from your insensitive and emotionless daughter.' he wants to shout at the top of his lungs, but Colin is a polite boy, so instead of that, he says, "I forgot that I have a train to catch in about fifty minutes. Bye!" This is a just-at-the-spur-of-the-moment lie of course; he doesn't have to return to Devonshire for the next three days.

"Some young man." her mother says to Lilith as she shuts the door behind him.

'More like a ticked off paparazzo who happens to snog unsuspecting girls.' is her only thought. She scoffs.

**\- н -**

The next time he sees her, he doesn't talk to her. It goes like this -

They're at Platform 9¾ and he has got Dennis with him. Dennis has to start his first year at Hogwarts and he is pretty much excited and jumping around with enthusiasm. He's asking something about Quidditch and Harry Potter and gawking around the platform in general when his gaze falls on Lilith. He tugs his elder brother's robes.

"Isn't that your girlfriend, the waitress from the restaurant?" he says as he points in her direction. She's a speck amongst the masses but Colin's brown eyes find her grey eyes easily. He looks for a second and turns around again to face his brother, refusing to see her.

"I don't have a girlfriend."

"Oh, I say otherwise. If she isn't your girlfriend then what are millions of photos featuring her with you doing in your private album?"

"Dennis Creevey, how could you go through my private album! It is _private_, not meant to be looked in!" He taps his head with painful thwacks repeatedly.

"You"

_Tap_

"sniveling"

_Tap_

_"_son"

_Tap_

"of"

_Tap_

"a"

_Tap_

At this instant, Mrs. Creevey raises her brow, challenging him to speak further. He falters.

"milkman's wife."

_Tap_

Dennis sees stars at being tapped so furiously on the head and Mrs. Creevey in turn playfully catches hold of her elder son's ear and pulls it so that he winces in pain. "No swearing." she says and glares at him.

"Okay" he replies sheepishly and Dennis smirks. Mr. Creevey laughs.

A few minutes after this, they part with their parents and board the Hogwarts Express and try to find a compartment, preferably the one that has Harry Potter in it, has space for them and is the furthest away from Lilith Moon. There is no such compartment. Dennis trudges behind him, bored by all the walking and in the end they end up with Lilith and an awkward silence. She doesn't stop them from sitting as it is not her train. Dennis looks questioningly at her.

"Aren't you two going to talk?" he asks both of them.

"Nope" comes the united reply. He buries himself in a book and she does the same, though they're really not reading. No, they're just pretending and in fact, trying to steal glances. His younger brother's gaze shuttles between them and he gives up trying to have a conversation out of them. 'I was wrong,' he thinks, 'she isn't his girlfriend. She's his future wife.' He chuckles. They look at him with raised eyebrows and go back to their 'reading'.

It is a pathetically long train ride to Hogwarts. The longest one ever.

**\- н -**

A few months have passed since the start of the term and they still haven't talked. Dennis has somehow managed to befriend her and he talks regularly to her. A part of her misses Collin but she tries her best to repress that part. It's a sunny afternoon and they've decided to sit by the Lake. He's telling her how he and his brother had attempted to correct the 'Potter Stinks' badges and how massively they failed in their endeavour. Colin's locked up in his Dark Room where he develops photos and she's glad, extremely glad for that. Dennis is holding a huge, beautiful book with a blue embossed cover. Naturally she grows curious and can't help but ask -

"What's that?" She points towards the book.

"This is my brother's secret." he whispers conspiratorially, even though there's no one nearby to listen.

"If it's his secret then what are you doing with it?"

"You see, that's the point, I err... stole it for some time. I wanted to show it to you."

"Me? Why?"

He thrusts it into her arms. "Here, just take it. Just see it. Bye!"

"Dennis, wait!" she cries out but he doesn't cease to run. He has waited so long for this chance and now he can't risk it by stopping. She is left alone with the big blue tome. Lilith opens it to find the words, 'My Private Album' written with a green sketch pen on the front page. It's an drawing notebook which has been converted into a photo album of sorts. Her heart stops when she sees her photo on the next page. The caption is, 'The First Person I Met At Hogwarts - Lilith Moon'. The girl in the photograph is smiling back at her and the amber shades of sunset are shining upon her face. In the background, waters of the same Lake on whose banks she's sitting right now, can be seen. There is a little post it note attached to it with tape.

'This is just the place

I've been homeless since the dimples on her simple face' is written upon it.

She blushes at what he has written. So apparently, Colin Creevey is not just a photographer but a poet too. The next few pages are all Harry Potter and Co., and then a bruised Draco Malfoy shows up and she laughs, remembering the good old times. Turning the page yet again, she finds to her horror and to her surprise that the rest of it, _all _of it is filled with her and him. Them laughing, them posing in weird ways, them frowning playfully, them studying - in general, them being them, Colin and Lilith, two best friends. And now all that has shattered. The last filled page is a photo of them at King's Cross Station. They're smiling; two children among a mass of people. Looking at that nostalgic piece of the past makes her realise just how much she misses him. There's another post it note attached here and it seems to have a full blown poem upon it.

. . ... ..

_"Spiral galaxies would turn in your eyes_

_When I came by with a small surprise_

_You loved all of my little quarks, so what went wrong?_

_Don't superstring me along, come on_

_Was there a big bang that I just missed?_

_Did some explosion cause a redshift?_

'_Cause you're moving away from me but what did I do?_

_The universe is mostly empty space without you_

_Wave or particle, I can't be both_

_So just say which way you like me most_

_I can be an experiment in your bedroom lab_

_To figure how the light we had went bad_

_Was there a big bang that I just missed?_

_Did some explosion cause a redshift?_

'_Cause you're moving away from me but what did I do?_

_The universe is mostly empty space without you_

_I'll build a collider and smash us to bits_

_To see what's inside us, to see if we stick_

'_Cause I will try anything this side of the Milky Way_

_To figure out why in the world you're drifting away_

_Was there a big bang that I somehow missed?_

_Did some explosion cause a redshift?_

'_Cause you're moving away from me but what did I do,_

_What did I do?_

_The universe is mostly empty space without you_

_Was there a big bang...?_

_Some explosion, some explosion, explosion, explosion_

_'Cause you're moving away from me but what did I do_

_The universe is mostly empty space without you"_

_. . ... ._

Rivers of a million emotions are flowing through her and she doesn't know which one to drown in. To say she's downright devastated would be an understatement. To say she wants to get up and jump in the lake before her would be more like it. Lilith wants to run into into his arms and make up but she doesn't do anything like that. She's a strong, independent girl and she is not going to apologise until he apologises first.

And that's final.

**\- н -**

Colin wants to go to the Yule Ball. No, not because of the girls and the food but because of the decorations and not to mention, Harry Potter. He needs a fourth year willing to pull him along. Normally, in such a situation he would have asked Lilith but since they're in a mutual state of extreme dislike, he doesn't do it. He would find someone, he has to. He would show her that he is good at catching a girl's fancy.

A few days later, he is sitting on the moving stairs and lamenting on his fate. He has found no girl till now. Also, earlier that morning, Dennis has told him that Lilith has found a date to the Ball. Colin doesn't know why he is so sad upon hearing that news that he has decided to spend the whole day sitting on the stairs. It is a Hogsmeade Saturday and the castle is mostly empty. He knows Lilith has gone and he is weighing the pro's and con's of following her. His head is an organised stack of lists at the moment and he is going through all the options when he is very rudely interrupted by a loud, knocking sound. He turns around his head to see to people, whom doesn't know, kissing each other senseless. His decision is made; he would rather follow Lilith than watch these two do such horrible things and that too right on the stairs - in stark public view. He rushes out.

He's running through the snow, running - running - running and doesn't come to a halt until he sees her entering The Three Broomsticks. He wraps his scarf around his face, hiding the lower portion of his face and hides his camera into his robe pockets. She doesn't notice him when he enters the building and goes and sits on one of the stools by Madam Rosmerta's bar table. Lilith is sitting on a table far away from him and she seems to be waiting for someone. A half-empty mug of butterbeer is lying on her table.

Fifteen minutes later, a boy with dark hair comes comes and sits by her. It is officially confirmed - Dennis wasn't lying; Lilith Moon really has a date to the Ball and he is positively burning with rage. Someone taps gently on his shoulder and he turns around to find a smiling Madam Rosmerta. "What can I get for you?" she asks him. He casts a momentary backward glance at the couple sitting on the damned table and then turns back his attention to the lady in front of him.

"A glass of your strongest Firewhiskey would do." he replies with a muffled voice from the depths of his scarf.

"You're a student! I can't give you that!" she replies, horrified.

"_Please, I need it._"

The woman's eyes lighten up with a strange kind of understanding. She is wise enough to form a connection between the backward glance and the 'please'.

"Okay, but just one shot. Nothing more. And don't tell anyone." She winks.

"Thanks"

**\- н -**

Colin is alone in his dark room. It is the night of the Yule Ball and everyone, even the first and second years are partying. Everyone is enjoying. Everyone is having a damn good time and here he is alone. A single candle is lit on the old wooden table he uses. His dark room is actually an ancient classroom which Professor McGonagall has allowed him to use. This part of the castle is empty like it usually is. Only the ghosts roam here and he considers himself to be one of them. Presently the Nearly Headless Nick and the Grey Lady are coming and going through the stone walls. He doesn't pay much attention to them. Eventually he gets up, extremely bored. He hasn't got any photos to develop, nor any homework. Colin pulls out his private album from his satchel and begins going through it. It had gone missing last month but somehow he had found it two weeks ago in his trunk.

The Grey Lady sits on a secondary stool beside him and looks at his photos with her translucent, wise eyes. He doesn't stop her from looking in; he knows she isn't going to tell anyone. They're sitting there, in complete silence by the faint candlelight when they hear noises from the corridor outside. At first, both of them think it's Peeves doing his usual pranks on some unsuspecting and unfortunate student but then a girl's voice and a cry of 'please' reaches their ears. He goes out to inspect, the Grey Lady on his heels and sees a sight that he had not imagined he would ever see. In the semi-darkness of the hallway, he can make out that Lilith is struggling against the dark haired boy he had seen at The Three Broomsticks. The boy seems to be drunk and Colin sees red. "Go, get your girl." the ghostly lady beside him whispers in his ear and vanishes without a single trace. He marches forward, his fourteen inch white wand already drawn out. When he is near enough, he attacks in blind rage, throwing spell after spell.

"_Petrificus Totalus!_"

"_Stupefy!_"

"_Immobilius!_"

"_Impedimenta!_"

"_Densaugeo!_"

"_Diffindo!_"

By now, Lilith has cleared away most of her tears to see the sight before her. Her blurry eyes tell her that her rescuer has thrown a load of curses and jinxes at Eckle François, who is lying on the floor, blacked out with rapidly growing huge front teeth and torn robes. When she has wiped away the last of her tears with her gown's white sleeves, she sees Colin, standing there with heaving breaths. He looks at her tear streaked cheeks and disheveled hair and raises his wand for one last curse when she quickly pushes herself off the wall and hugs him from behind.

"Please don't this," she whispers with a shaky voice in his ear. "You would kill him."

He slowly lowers his wand and removes her hands from his stomach. He doesn't respond to her, does a turn, doesn't even look in her direction and starts walking back to his Dark Room. She follows him.

"Aren't you going to say something, even after all this?"

No response.

He starts collecting his things together, depositing them in his satchel.

"Collin Creevey, you just can't rescue your long lost friend to whom you haven't talked in months and then just ignore them!" she shouts. He still doesn't reply and is going out through the door when she comes before him and blocks his path. He looks at her with seemingly emotionless eyes.

"You. Will. Absolutely. Not. Ignore. Me." she speaks challengingly and before he can comprehend what's happening, Lilith kisses him. His lips are a bit chapped, but she doesn't seem to mind. Colin's not sure what to do with his hands, but Lilith solves that problem for him. She grabs one, then the other, and places them on her hips, all the while kissing him senseless. When his knees start to buckle, Lilith walks them backward until Colin's back is against the wall and she's pressing herself up against him. His satchel falls with a clank to the floor but neither of them notices. Somehow her hands are in his back pockets, and he's about to find out that her gown comes with similar pockets when they are very rudely interrupted by his younger brother who had come looking for him.

"Ten points from Gryffindor for snogging in the corridor!" Dennis squeals loudly. "And another ten points for being stupid enough to kiss my ugly brother!" he adds, though he is secretly very happy.

"Bugger off, Dennis. You're no prefect." Lilith growls. She doesn't move though, just glances over her shoulder and glares at Dennis like Filch does at the firsties who leave their bubblegum in keyholes. Dennis considers things for a moment before backing off and trotting away. Even he knows better than to go face to face with an angry young woman.

Lilith turns back to Colin, a smile on her face. "Now, where were we?" She is moving in again but he stops her.

"Wait! Why are we doing this? Wasn't this the reason we fought in the first place?" His cheeks are red and he feels like burning.

"We are doing this _again _because in the last five minutes, I have found out that kissing you is absolute bliss."

"So that we means we are friends again, just like that?"

"No. That means we're friends who kiss each other once or twice a year."

"That isn't ri-" he begins to say but stops when her lips meet his and her hands tug him closer and closer to herself.

**\- н -**

**End of chapter notes -**

**I enjoyed writing this one and I hope you enjoyed reading it too.**

**Review! The button is right there.**


	5. Chapter 5

[UNEDITED]

_A/N: Who doesn't love the adventure of OoTP? A hearty thank you to all the people who have reviewed this silly tale of mine. This chapter is more on what is happening around them. Sorry for the sheer shortness of this but it was the necessity of the hour._

_**Original poem at the beginning, don't make fun! Numbers in brackets indicate footnotes.**_

**\- н -**

**In Memoriam**

_**Chapter 5**_

**\- н -**

_. . ... ._

_We won't go down_

_Shining light_

_Dying sight_

_We ride into the night_

_For the fight_

_We won't go down_

_This is where it begins_

_The tick tock starts_

_And stops the beating of our hearts_

_The night is silent_

_And we more than it_

_We won't go down_

_Time is less_

_And we are a mess_

_The enemy advances_

_But our braveness prances_

_We _refuse_ to go down_

_. . ... ._

**\- н -**

Dark clouds are on the horizon and they are scared of these ominous propositions, both of them. Voldemort has risen back from near death and it is confirmed. Colin Creevey believes Harry Potter's claim with all his heart and so do Lilith Moon and his little brother, Dennis Creevey. Outwardly, they try to keep their cool, but inwardly they are mostly terrified due to this fatal news. Their new Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher, Dolores Umbridge, isn't any good either. They are scared, very scared. The dark forces are on the rise and they are working against people like them.

A very frightening situation indeed.

During the Welcoming Feast, they had caught that Umbridge represented the Ministry and that the school was not an independent entity now. Times are dark and so are their hopes. In a world against them, they have only each other and Dennis, though any of them don't express this openly for fear of shattering their imaginary, fake shield of security. All of three of them have heard of Umbridge's detentions and their mere description makes a shiver run down their spines. Colin has decided to join the DA but Lilith has not since she doesn't want to get in more trouble than necessary and he is angry at her but doesn't say anything as he doesn't want to lose her for another time.

"Can I come with you?" Dennis asks him the day before the meeting at Hog's Head.

"You know you can't, Dennis. You're not old enough." Colin whispers. "You can't go to Hogsmeade until you're a third year."

"It's not fair," says Dennis, angrily kicking at the wall of the common room. 'If I can't go with you, why did you even bother telling me? I mean if Harry is setting up a Defence Against...'

"Quiet!" orders Colin. 'Keep your voice down. It's a secret, remember!'

"Sorry." Dennis looks around nervously, but the Gryffindor common room is crowded and noisy, and no one appears to be paying them any attention. "What about the secret passages? You said that there were secret passages to Hogsmeade."

"Yes, but they're secret, Dennis," says Colin. "I've asked around, but everyone I've asked has said they don't know where they are. Everyone apart from Fred Weasley, he told me about one under the desk in Snape's office. But Katie Bell overheard, and she said he was lying. Besides, according to Jack Sloper, Filch knows them all."

Dennis sighs and slumps sadly against the wall.

"I'm sorry Denni," says Colin. "Filch checks everybody's Hogsmeade letters, too. You'd never be able to get through the gate without a pass."

Dennis scowls unhappily. "True," he admits. His older brother pats his shoulder in an attempt to console him, and that is when the idea strikes Dennis. "We'll just have to make one, Colin," he says.

"Make one? How?"

"I've no idea," says Dennis, shrugging his shoulders. "I hoped that you would know. After all, you've already got one! I watched Dad sign it for you. You're the photographer, Colin, not me. I thought … well…" He grins at Colin. "There are advantages to being Muggle-born, you know. We know loads of stuff that wizards don't. What if we made a photocopy? Wizards don't have photocopiers. They probably don't even know what the word means… So…"

Colin whoops, and hugs his brother. "That's a brilliant idea, Dennis," he shouts over the noise.

"I doubt it," says a snide voice. Dennis looks across to see the sneering face of a third year called Romilda.

"Ignore her, I'll be back in a minute," yells Colin over his shoulder as he dashes up the stairs to the boys' dormitories. He is back within minutes, carrying his camera case. 'My Hogsmeade letter is inside,' he whispers. "Let's go." Colin doesn't stop, he scampers past Dennis, heading out of the common room. Without hesitation, Dennis trots obediently after his brother.

"Where are we going?" Dennis asks as they run along the corridor.

"My darkroom of course. I can't develop a photograph in the common room, can I? I've had an idea, and if I'm right I'll be able to amend the wording during the development process. The only problem is that I've only ever printed my pictures on photographic paper, and I'll need to print the copy of my letter onto school parchment."

Dennis follows his brother down the shifting staircases to the basement, and along a dimly lit corridor. The door at the end is practically ancient and falling apart. Colin touches the door with his wand. 'Colin Creevey' he says clearly. The door swings silently open. 'C'mon, Dennis.' He leads his brother into the room. The room is very dark, as a darkroom should be and a stark contrast from the corridor outside.

"I might be able to change the wording while the photo is in the development potion. Might. If it goes wrong we will have to start again so don't disturb me if you want to go tomorrow."

He sets his permission slip on the rickety table and carefully takes numerous shots without as much as twitching his eyebrows, annouces he's happy with the last one and keeps the camera aside. Then, he proceeds to cut a piece of parchment with utmost precision with a pair of scissors which he has procured from his robe and Dennis can't seem to comprehend how much pockets carry so much all the time without bursting at the seams. During the next half an hour he sets himself to develop the final product while muttering terms like 'intensity' and 'field of depth' which his little brother doesn't understand one bit.

When it is ready, Dennis Creevey bursts with joy and Colin smiles weakly. They ask Lilith to join them but she refuses, saying that she does not want to get in more trouble than necessary. He doesn't like her attitude regarding the issue but lets it be - he has already lost her once and he does not want there to be another time.

The next day Argus Filch glares at the Creevey brothers standing in front of him. Dennis looks towards the open gate, licks his lips nervously and wonders if he should simply make a run for it. Filch grumbles, and runs his finger carefully across Dennis's forged pass. The Hogwarts caretaker is muttering under his breath as he reads it.

\- н -

_PERMISSION FOR VISIT TO HOGSMEADE FOR_

_Student name: Dennis Creevey_

_This document hereby serves to state the aforementioned Third-year student of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is permitted to visit the village of Hogsmeade at such a time that the school arranges, and with the signature of the undersigned parent or guardian._

_The student shall abide by all such rules &amp; regulations relevant to such expeditions and set by the school._

_Print Name: Mathias Creevey_

_Relation: Father_

_Signature: M. Creevey_

\- н -

"Is this yours?" Filch asks gruffly.

"Err," Dennis begins, breaking under the monstrous caretaker's hostile gaze.

"It was bad enough last year," says Colin angrily. "You told me that I couldn't possibly be a third year. You said I was too small! And now you're doing the same thing to my brother! I'll tell you what, we'll do what I had to do last year. We'll see what Professor McGonagall has to say, shall we? I'm sure she'd love to be dragged down here _again_. Just to confirm how old my brother is."

"Please hurry up, Mr Filch. We want all to go to Hogsmeade and you're holding up the queue!" says Lilith politely. Dennis turns and catches the ghost of a wink from her. "What's the problem, Mr Filch?" she asks sweetly. "Colin is a fourth year, like me. And his brother is a third year." she adds.

"Huh," Filch grumbles. He takes one final look at the two Hogsmeade permission letters and, unable to find a flaw in them, thrusts them back at the Creevey brothers. They stride rapidly out from the school.

"I hope you enjoy yourselves in Hogsmeade," Lilith shouts after them as Filch carefully examines her own pass.

'We will, thanks, Lilith' says Colin.

'Yeah, thanks, Lilith,' says Dennis.

"Good job Lilith backed us up. I wasn't expecting that since she doesn't want to join and all that rubbish." says Colin as they get a little away from the gate.

"Of course, she did Col. You're her best friend after all." his brother replies. 'More like future husband' he thinks inwardly. "I think Filch would have let us through anyway," Dennis tells his brother staunchly. "You were brilliant, Colin. Threatening him with McGonagall was a great idea. Now, let's find this pub. What's it called?"

"The Hog's Head"

**\- н -**

It's official - the Creevey brothers are a part of the DA and they're damn proud of it. They stare at their Galleons when they are in their beds at night with pride and remember the counterfeit they did. Lilith is not a member, but that's okay since he teaches her all he can. He cares about her too much to let her be defenseless. The Impediment Jinx is his best bet.

One day they practice creating Patronuses by the Lake. He doesn't know what to think about. Out of the three, only Dennis is successful in forming a white mist of some strange kind. Dennis laughs at their poor efforts and jokingly tells them to use their memory of their kiss last year in the corridor. Unbeknownst to him and to each other, they really think of that and are successful in forming a white mist too.

**\- н -**

Colin knows Hogwarts as well as anyone - better than most because where they just look he records. And as they get older things start cracking. Their new world, their shining world of possibilities and delights, starts looking a little tarnished, and it's hard to ignore the feeling that they're not wanted. They're not about to leave, absolutely not, but that doesn't mean they don't notice things. They're Gryffindors, not idiots, and it's hard to ignore the sneers sent their way. But they are Gryffindors, so they glare right back and all three of them get written up again and again for fighting in the corridors.

Umbridge rounds him up one day for using his camera too much. When he comes back, he isn't the same Colin that Dennis and Lilith know. They know something terribly wrong has happened with him but he keeps his mouth shut like a stubborn zipper refusing to open up and doesn't spill anything out. After that many things change, he retaliates - his loyal camera becomes his weapon of choice.

Colin starts using his camera differently. He's heard of photojournalism - who hasn't heard of photojournalism? - but he never really thought about trying it himself. He does now. He takes as many pictures as always but now they're not just of corridors or teachers accidentally making ridiculous faces. He takes pictures of educational decrees and abuses of power, of bleeding hands and scared faces. (He doesn't take pictures of the DA; he's got a brain and there are things he doesn't need to be told.) He takes pictures and stores them under his bed and labels the boxes 'evidence.' No one notices anything different, no one but Dennis who's known his brother forever, and Lilith who knows him more than he does himself. Things keep getting worse and Colin keeps taking pictures. He gets more than just the horrors, gets the fun stuff too because everyone could use the levity. He gets the portable swamp and the nifflers and the best picture of the Weasley twins' dramatic exit anyone's ever seen. He gets a picture of Marietta and her pimples too, gets a picture and prints it out twice as big as usual and isn't sorry at all.

And so it goes. The war at Hogwarts, the silent hostilities that get less and less silent as time goes on, gets documented in pictures stored in shoeboxes under a bed in Gryffindor Tower. It's accountability and condemnation and truth. A picture is worth a thousand words, as they say, and Colin knows that better than anyone. (A camera is too - he's never forgotten what happened his first year. And if he keeps his eye glued to the viewfinder for more reasons than just journalistic integrity, well, who can blame him really?)

They kiss sometimes. It's out of sheer necessity of course - for emotional stability, physical needs and the other delusions they sometimes seem to need. It's not love - just a duty of a friend towards his friend, nothing the sort of starry eyed romances they have seen in muggle movies. Colin has stopped speaking in exclamations all the time and Lilith has stopped being shy because times are dark and so they need to be too. This year makes them grow up - mentally and emotionally and the stack of pictures under Colin's bed gets higher and higher. He can't be bothered to organise them, doesn't care enough to sort them into years or locations or any other convenient system. He keeps them in his 'Evidence' shoeboxes and keeps them shrinking. They're stacked under his bed in teetering towers held up by magic and miracles (and really, is there a difference between the two?).

They practice duelling in the Hallways when it's Gryffindor prefects' chance to patrol. Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley don't say anything and let them be. They extinguish their anguish and angst in these duels. Dark clouds are on the horizon and they need a rain coat. The battle at Department of Mysteries happens and somehow Colin and Dennis are left behind and they curse themselves for it. All the DA members come back in one piece but they are not the same. They have changed - all of them have. Their eyes don't shine with the pleasures of youth and the frivolity of warm sunshine, rather they contain the long lost look of an old man contemplating his life atop a mountain in the middle of a cold winter. Lilith's fifth year, Colin's fourth and Dennis' second year is over as soon as it starts. Time flies like the Millennium Falcon [1] in hyperspace, he wonders everyday as he sees his face changing and his hands getting more and more callused from clicking his camera repeatedly. He knows it's an open war now.

They meet up during the holidays in between the the last and the next session and plan all they can. They are Gryffindors, not idiots and they know that whatever is heading their way is not going to be any good. They know it they wouldn't be able to handle it with brashness and spur-of-the-moment bursts of courage. And boy, do they plan. Right from the safehouses and every broom closet to the downright offensive, they go through it all. Dennis is nervous of all this but the hard looks on his elder brother and Lilith's faces numbs this terror off. Children like them are supposed to stay quite and remain behind adults but as they discuss strategies and tactics on Lilith's sofa when her mother's out, they aren't children anymore.

Sometimes when Dennis is not present, they snog and in the beginning repeatedly tell themselves it is for mental stability but when he loses his fingers in her curls and she in in the folds of his too loose shirt, they forget it all.

**\- н -**

**Footnote -**

**[1] Millennium Falcon was Han Solo's super fast space ship from Star Wars. Colin is a child from our world. It is therefore necessary that he knows about such things.**

**End of chapter notes -**

**I hope it wasn't half as bad.**


	6. Chapter 6

[UNEDITED]

_A/N: Chapter 6. Some may find it boring. Believe me when I say that the next chapter will be much, much longer. I promise it! Not much romance in this one._

**\- н -**

**In Memoriam**

_**Chapter 6**_

**\- н -**

Last year was frightening, this year...she can't say; she isn't supposed to say, for fear of shattering her fake protective bubble in which she, Colin and Dennis reside. So far it has been really peaceful and she can't help but suspect that something terribly wrong is going on. She knows that Colin suspects something too - she can see it in the way his brow is permanently twisted these days but she doesn't voice her concerns. And why wouldn't they suspect? Every year of theirs has been abnormal due to the adventures of one Harry Potter and his friends. The DA has not been reformed since Snape has proved to be a surprisingly effective Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher, though the Creevey brothers, unsurprisingly want it to be reformed.

She repeatedly tells them to not wish for things they can't have during their secret practice sessions which are mostly held in his darkroom since all three of them have lately noticed the presence of two of Malfoy's goons outside the Room of Requirement. All three of them suspect him to be upto no good but they don't interfere in the blond boy's suspicious schedule, instead choosing to channel their energy into more useful things - like offence and defence - fight or flight.

Today she has Potions with the Slytherins. Personally she thinks that Slughorn is a bit of a pompous show off, but of course she doesn't go about telling (or yelling) this little thought of hers. The door to the classroom is ajar as she walks in along with some of her classmates coming up behind her. A cauldron is resting on one of the stoves and some strange, shiny concoction is cooling in it. It smells funny - eery. A faint, pink mist is rising from the sheen of the liquid's surface. She knows she has seen this thing somewhere before but her mind can't quite place it. Slughorn makes his way to the black cauldron and stands beside it and asks the whole class -

"Who can tell me what this is?" He has twinkle in his eyes.

From the corner of her eyes, Lilith sees Hermione raising her hand a teensy bit before continuing to explain. She slightly rolls her eyes and doesn't really listen to the Gryffindor prefect's babble. This girl seems to know everything. She catches the phrases, 'this is Amortentia', 'love potion' and 'smells different to each'.

'Of course!' she thinks, 'It's Amortentia. That's why I am smelling such weird collection of aromas at the same time. Sandalwood, Jasmines and - and a very strange smell...rolls of film?' Her eyes widen by a great measure and she clasps her hand to her mouth to cover the small 'O' formed by her lips out of intense shock. She shouldn't be so shocked; she has been snogging him for nearly two years now, she supposes. What else had she expected? Eckle Françoise's disgusting cologne? She is glad, extremely glad that she doesn't smell that.

But still, this little revelation of hers has far reaching consequences. She is officially attracted to Colin Creevey, officially for the last five minutes and unofficially - Who knows for how long?

A hot blush rishes her cheeks and Lilith Moon doesn't listen to anything during the rest of the class.

**\- н -**

Colin and Dennis are sick with worry. Well, Colin more than Dennis, but the emotion is there constantly. He talks to Neville about re-running the DA almost everyday. He suspects everyone - especially Malfoy. He knows something is up with the git and he wants to yell this fact at the top of his voice from the roof of Hogwarts. Of course, he doesn't do any such thing. The only ray of peace in his chaotic thoughts is Lilith. She calms him down and tells him not to worry so much. He scoffs and tells her to stop hoping for the best and start preparing for the worst everytime she does that but everytime, she closes his mouth with her.

She's been doing that way too much, recently. Of course, he doesn't tell her to stop. Something's up with her too, he can tell.

Colin loses himself in his photographs and developing potion. He tries to sort through his 'Evidence' shoeboxes and organise them but he fails each time he sets himself to it. Nobody looks at his work but he knows that every time he clicks a picture, history is recorded forever. In his first year, nobody had gone through his photos when they had been frantically searching the school for Slytherin's Heir and they had been fools to not do it because everything, right from Ginny's lost looks to the Basilisk itself had been recorded and stored in his album. The evidence had been there all along, waiting to be used. Four years later, Colin still records evidence like each year - unused evidence. He captures Malfoy sneaking around the school and the very distant look in Madam Rosmerta's eyes.

He knows everything - well, nearly everything and Colin pours it all out to Lilith and Dennis.

And he knows that something is going to very wrong when he feels that he's going to see his parents for the last time when he meets them at the Platform for the Christmas Holidays. Little does he know, that Lilith, standing some twenty feet away is feeling the same regarding her mother. He feels that that this is the last time he would ever see his mother glaring at him for some silly swearing or his father laughing. He knows that somewhere in the last year, he has changed too much and maybe, _maybe _he is being absolutely paranoid.

He isn't sure even if he knows all these things completely. But one thing he knows with assured certainty.

He is scared. Very, very scared.

**\- н -**

Sometimes there are good moments in their uncertain lives.

She is sitting alone in the Library, working hard on her essay when two arms wrap themselves around her and a head of mousy brown hair settles itself in the crook of her neck. She smiles a little.

**\- н -**

Christmas goes like it does each year for Lilith. She works around the restaurant and helps her mother with the occasional guest but somewhere in her mind she knows that all this was going to be over soon. The dark clouds which were lining the future's horizon in her fifth year and rushing closer and closer and she knows it. She is afraid - for her mother, Colin, Dennis, Hogwarts and lastly, herself.

Amelia Moon frequently notices the worried look marring her daughter's face and constantly asks her to let the cat out of the bag. She doesn't get to know anything - at least for the time being.

Some two hundred miles south, in Devonshire, Mr. and Mrs. Creevey notice the same look on their usually lively sons. Colin's mother notices the dull way in which they listlessly eat their supper and their father notices their absentmindedness while they go delivering milk with him in the mornings.

Like Amelia Moon, the elder Creeveys don't get to know anything either.

'It isn't the right time to tell them anything' the three of them tell themselves repeatedly when their conscience occasionally breaks down and harrows them to spit out the truth and the fear. They don't know that the three of them would never get the time, nor the opportunity to let it all out again.

**\- н -**

A long time has passed since Christmas and everything seems fine. Their school year is too peaceful for their adventurous tastes. Things seem to be going on too normally, too boringly. They study for their upcoming exams and go to their classes and just as the balls of fear rooted in their minds start to dissolve a little, 30th June 1997 happens. The omnious clouds they had seen approaching them from the horizon, have made their entry at last. It is nearly night and Colin has just finished a terribly long essay on the uses of Moonstone in The De-Aging Potion. He is lying in his bed in the dormitory, extremely weared out when he feels his shirt pocket getting unbearably hot.

He gasps as he removes the coin, only to see it glowing. He grabs his wand and frantically rushes out, only to meet Dennis in the empty Common Room. They look at each other and they know what it means. He starts towards the portrait hole.

"You can't go." Dennis says calmly.

"And why the hell not?"

"Because you have mum and dad to think of. Can't you see, we aren't prepared, you aren't."

"But-"

"No buts Colin Alec Creevey! This is just not the time for arguments. If something happens to you, what will I tell to mum and dad? What will I tell them? You can't go and that's final."

His brother slumps down on the ground, holding his head with his hands when Lilith comes rushing in.

"Colin! They are here." Her voice is grim, her face set rigidly and her whole body is tense. That simple statement shatters his world forever as she falls into his arms, holding him as she would never let him go.

**\- н -**

He will dress in his dark blue suit, his Sunday best his mother would say. Everyone else will be in dress robes but it doesn't feel right to him. In his world, the one where brooms don't fly and owls don't act as postmen, men wear suits on such solemn occasions. It is a sign of admiration and reverence as much as an acknowledgment of ceremony and ritual, and so he chooses to honour this man the only way he knows how, with a simple gesture of respect from another world.

His hands are unnaturally steady as he does up the buttons. He wears his grandfather's cufflinks, and places his Godfather's monogrammed handkerchief in his breast pocket. His shoes are shined and his hair is trimmed and neat. When he is done, he finds the reflection of a man staring back at him from his bedroom mirror, a sight that holds his gaze for several minutes until the trance is broken by the sounding of steeple bells in the distance.

It is time.

As he turns to leave, the glint of a camera lens catches his eyes. Sitting on his bed is the accessory that is more like an extra limb than a simple piece of machinery. In truth, he feels somewhat naked without it, incomplete, and part of him wants to reach for it, but he doesn't. Instead he remembers…

When he was a boy of six years, the age at which one is at the peak of curious mind and contented oblivion, Colin Creevey found a photograph. He was very innocently searching for hidden Christmas presents, as is the sworn duty of all small children and a tradition he was not about ignore, when he came upon a dusty box in the back of his mother's closet. Exultant fingers pried open the box only to discover if was full of some old junk: little pink dresses and scuffed white shoes, hair clips with flowers and a stuffed bear, some dolls and a small stack of pictures.

The pictures were oddly discoloured, blurred at the edges, creased at the corners, and not nearly as much fun as the stuffed bear but he was drawn to them nonetheless. There were people who looked like his parents but the lady's hair was very long, and the man, much more slender than his father. They were playing with a little girl he had never seen before; she seemed to be about his age, maybe a bit older, and she looked a little like Dennis only with darker hair that was long and curly. She had a pretty smile with small white teeth that gapped slightly in the font. Colin liked her eyes most of all: they were the colour of dark chocolate, which was his favorite treat, and they seemed so warm and gentle.

He quietly sifted through the pictures until he came upon one of just the little girl, in a pale yellow dress and shiny white shoes. She was running though a field that was littered with leaves, her arms outstretched like she was an airplane about to take off, and her dark chocolate eyes were happy and bright. He turned the photograph over and found out her name was Beatrix and she was seven when this picture was taken. He doesn't know much about Beatrix but he knew he liked her, he knew they could be friends, best friends, if he could only find her.

Suddenly, he heard the downstairs door slam. He knew his mother was done with her gardening and he had only a minute to get back to his room where he was supposed to be playing with his younger brother. Colin quickly threw everything into the box, pushed it back into the closet, and ran out only to find that his brother had chewed up his favorite book. He would have been furious were it not for a picture that sat in his back pocket, a picture that made him smile when he thought of it. A photograph of a girl named Beatrix, who would be his best friend.

Colin dared not ask who Beatrix was, for then he would have to explain how he came upon the photo in the first place; and the code of small children clearly stated that one never admitted to the hunting down of Christmas gifts. Instead the photo became his secret possession, and Beatrix, his secret friend. Late at night, when he was supposed to be asleep, he would take out his coveted picture and hold in tenderly in his cupped hands. He would tell Beatrix tales of the day's adventures, and giggle at jokes one could only share with his best friend.

Two years later, another Christmas in fact, Colin accompanied his mother to church and silently followed her as she walked toward the altar after mass. She knelt by a pillar of candles and began to light one as she said a quiet prayer. It was then that Colin heard a sad quivering voice say aloud the name he whispered in the darkness of his room every night.

Colin found the courage to ask the question that has burned his tongue for years. It was that Christmas that he learned the words 'sister' and 'illness' and 'death'. He learned of a disease that doesn't show mercy to children with gapped teeth and dark chocolate eyes. He learned that pain and loss could travel over a decade and a half and not lose any potency. That Christmas Colin went home and mourned a girl he never met. He thought of a voice he would never hear and a hand he would never hold and he wept.

Colin learned something else that Christmas: that though Beatrix had died when he was too young to remember, she lived in a small stack of photos that sat in a box in his mother's closet. She would forever be preserved on little pieces of paper and her smile and her eyes would always be happy and bright. Colin learned that photographs had the power to stopper death and fight illness and hold truth. They told epic stories. They captured history. They stopped time. It was that Christmas that he asked his mother to return all the toys he had received as gifts, and buy him a camera.

And so it would pass that Colin Creevey saw the world through the lens of a camera. People would become the subjects and the world around him the backdrop to an existence captured on glossy paper and tacked to his wall. His father hoped he'd take up a sport while his mother hoped he'd have more friends but Colin doesn't care for the triviality of games or the distraction of acquaintances. He was seeking truth. He was creating eternity.

Today he stands in the shadow of dead man, and eternity doesn't seem quite so infinite.

Without needing to see it happen, he knows; he knows how the day would progress. How each scene would play out. In his mind he has already framed the shots.

_Snap_

Lilith, wiping away the stray tears that threaten to drop from her eyes. Her chestnut hair is splayed out and doesn't do anything to sober it down. She sits by the Lake with Dennis; two lone figures trying to configure what would happen next. Trying to find out what comes after a destruction so magnanimous that it changes the world as they know it. Dennis peers in the strangely calm waters, trying to think if anything could have been different if he and his brother had gone to fight. His eyes are a little red.

_Snap_

Lavender Brown is sitting on the steps of Gryffindor Tower, her hair eerily perfect and her crystal blue eyes outlined in stark red. Her shoulders are slumped as if sitting up was too strenuous, her knees are bent and her feet pointed in towards each other much in the way a small girl might place them. Parvati Patil is sitting next to her with an arm placed softly around her stooped shoulders. But whereas Lavender is looking down, Parvati is looking up toward her God, her eyes shiny and her face streaked with the tears she's been shedding all night.

_Snap_

Seamus Finnegan is sitting alone under the tree that blooms white flowers year round. His tie is loose around his neck and his fingers absentmindedly tear the grass at his feet. His lips are pursed tightly and his brow is knitted and strained. Seamus does not cry.

_Snap_

Dean Thomas is sitting on the sill of the common room window, a sketchpad abandoned on his lap with a crude sketch of a lion lying limply on a stone table. His forehead is pressed against the windowpane and his breath steams a small patch of the glass by his mouth. He stares blankly outside, most probably searching for Seamus.

_Snap_

Professor McGonagall is outside the Great Hall trying to comfort a group of first years who are terrified because they haven't been here for the past six years and don't understand. Their faces are pale white, and despite the warmth of the day, they shiver.

She towers over them; her hat perched high on her head, her glasses resting on the tip of her nose; a sight which holds safety and security in its familiarity. But there is something in her eyes that seems out of place. Something in the way she stands, in the line of her tense lips, in the set of her jaw. Professor McGonagall tries to reassure the children that surround her but her face wears the same expression as theirs, and it is difficult to tell who is consoling whom.

_Snap_

Neville Longbottom sits half-dressed on an unmade bed, his eyes focused on his shoes. His face is pensive, as if he's forgotten what they are and how to put them on. His head hangs forward and his hair falls over his temple, his mouth opened slightly so that it resembles a small circle. He sits perfectly still with a shoe in his hand and his robes pooled on the floor, waiting for someone to tell him what will happen next.

_Snap_

Ginny sits atop a broom, watching the preparations below her. Her hair is tied back and several loose strands are tossed by the wind so they float around her face. The smoky grey of the overcast sky clashes with the flame of her hair and the flush of her cheeks, and she is the only beautiful thing that he will see this day. Ginny is alone, which is how she prefers it.

_Snap_

Hermione Granger is curled into Ron Weasley's still form, her face buried in his chest, as if she can no longer look at the world. Hair that is usually messy and full of wild curls is listless as if it has given up as well. Her arms are wrapped around her abdomen, her back is curved, and her robes seem to be about two sized too big; she seems to be shrinking. Or maybe the world has just gotten too big. Maybe she is trying to make herself as small as possible. Maybe, the girl whose mind could take over the world doesn't want to think anymore.

Ron holds her with one hand while the other lies limply by his side. His eyes are dark and half-lidded as they look down to where the mourners have already began to gather. The freckles that cover his face grow more striking as the skin that surrounds them is drained of all its natural colour. His back is perfectly erect and his shoulders are squared and rigid. A lock of hair falls over his forehead but he doesn't move it. Today he is solid and focused. Today he is a wall that surrounds his friend, that holds her up. Today he is a soldier.

Just behind them, under the shade of an elm tree, stands Harry Potter. He holds one hand out to the tree, steadying himself against the rough bark. He watches his friends with a look of profound understanding, as if he has finally figured out the answer to a question he has been contemplating all his life. Green eyes sparkle and glow. Perhaps they shine with tears like Parvati, perhaps with comprehension like Ron's. or perhaps his eyes glow because he is Harry Potter and he had finally figured out what that means.

In this photo, the background is faded white so that nothing shows but three people who might as well be one. It is a familiar snapshot, blurred around the edges and creased at the corners. It is a photograph as foreign to the person who looks upon it as it is to those who image rests on the glossy paper. It is time captured. It is infinity expressed. It is the end of one story. It is the beginning of a greater one.

_Snap_

A man stands in front of a mirror in his dark blue Sunday best. He is wearing his grandfather's cufflinks, and his Godfather's monogrammed handkerchief in his breast pocket. His shoes are shined and his hair is trimmed and neat. He is reaching for a care-worn picture of little girl in pale yellow dress and shiny white shoes. Armed with nothing else he will step out the door and down to where a thousand strong will congregate to watch the world change.

There are some pictures that will never fade, some memories that can never be lost, and he doesn't need a thousand words to say goodbye.

There are some pictures that will never fade, some memories that can never be lost, even if the world around them shatters and crumbles into oblivion.

**\- н -**

**End of chapter notes -**

**The beginning of the end. I hope you liked it! Please REVIEW.**


	7. Chapter 7

[UNEDITED]

_A/N: The Last Chapter. Battle cries fill the air where education should have prevailed..._

_I couldn't have waited more to write this one!_

_Poem at the beginning belongs to Dylan Thomas. Brackets indicate footnotes._

**\- н -**

**In Memoriam**

_**Chapter 7**_

**\- н -**

_**Do not go gentle into that good night, **_

_Old age should burn and rave at close of day; _

_Rage, rage against the dying of the light. _

_Though wise men at their end know dark is right, _

_Because their words had forked no lightning they _

_Do not go gentle into that good night. _

_Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright _

_Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, _

_Rage, rage against the dying of the light. _

_Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, _

_And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, _

_Do not go gentle into that good night. _

_Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight _

_Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, _

_Rage, rage against the dying of the light. _

**\- н -**

Desperate people determined not to focus on the circumstances of their lives do strange things.

In the melancholic atmosphere of Hogwarts, three people stand together, trying to support each other.

The funeral is completed and Albus Dumbledore is laid to rest forever. The moment the coffin is lowered into the hole of the land, Lilith knows that good times have truly ended. Colin holds her from behind and supports his chin upon her head. Dennis catches her hand as stubborn tears line her cheeks. She knows that Colin is crying too; she can feel a little bit of wetness on her forehead. At the end, he pulls her to him, gives a soft kiss on her forehead and whispers something that sounds like 'don't cry' to her but she isn't sure. The melancholy of sorrow is overpowering her other senses.

When the ceremony is over, he presses something into her hand, closes her fist over it, kisses her one last time, doesn't say goodbye and is off before she can even realise. When his silhouette has mixed with the clouds of the horizon, she unconsciously bends down her neck to see what he has thrust into her hands.

Desperate people determined not to focus on the circumstances of their lives do strange things.

It is a DA galleon.

**\- н -**

Months have passed since he last saw her. They're on the run - him and Dennis. They have been all over England - Wales, Cardiff, London, Cokeworth and millions of other places. They never cease to stop to rest. It's always open, cook, sleep and pack-up in a vicious cycle. They have somehow managed to send their parents out of the country - to Greece.

Desperate people determined not to focus on the circumstances of their lives do strange things.

It is nearly five in the morning and a blinding flash wakes up Dennis from his slumber. He sits up to see Colin holding his camera. He squints with irritation.

"Colin, are you mad? Your flash would attract snatchers from miles!"

"Shut up Deni! It doesn't matter. We can outrun those idiots any day."

"Oh, really? Getting cockey are we?" he mockingly challenges him. Before Colin can comprehend what is happening, Dennis has snatched the camera from his hands and clicked a picture of his. He tries to hide his messy hair and slightly unshaven face, but fails massively.

Dennis grins devilishly.

"Now that's a revenge! Your mess for my drool!"

**\- н -**

She is distraught. Utterly distraught.

Lilith has been running around for an eternity and she is broken. She wants, no she _needs _someone to hold her shaken self. At school she had suspected that something had been seriously wrong when she had received no mail for the whole of June. She had repeatedly told herself that she was being far too paranoid. Told herself that she was worrying herself excessively, but somewhere she had known all along that she had been wrong to think that everything was fine.

The smell, _oh God, _the smell - it had been a dead giveaway. There had been no mistaking the disgusting snake and skull left in her home. She had ran like hell, and kept running and running and running until her feet had given way to tiredness and fatigue.

She is broken and she needs someone. Now, as she lies in a cheap hotel room, she wants someone to hold her and tell her that everything would be fine. To her that she and her friends would survive this brutality. Lilith buries her head in the pillow and cries her eyes out; remembering her mother, wanting someone - more specifically Colin to tell her to be strong and not give up. She fingers the galleon he has given her, wishing that somehow the little trinket would reunite them with each other. And in this moment, in this flood of tears, amidst a thousand shades of revenge, anger and sorrow, she knows that she loves him.

**\- н -**

It is the First of May today and they have managed to land themselves in a decent motel for the night. After months of running around, he feels extremely tired. Colin wants to rest and lie in a bed for days on an end. He is getting very, very frustated. In the middle of the evening, when he and Dennis are watching news, he feels his pocket getting hot and he instantly knows that the time to fight the war has come at last. He gets up quietly and goes to bathroom, trying to find a way to calm his nerves, trying to think of a way to tell his brother in a manner as peaceful as possible.

Colin spins away from the mirror, bracing both hands against the towel bar and closing his eyes to feel the still-surprising strength in his shoulders and arms as the muscles tense. "Come on, Creevey," he whispers desperately, "you can do this. Alexander the Great had already founded his first colony by your age, you can talk to Deni and keep your mouth shut about the shit at school. They're counting on you. They're all counting on you. Don't you dare let them down. Don't you dare let her down."

When he emerges, he finds that the television has been turned off and his little brother is peering at him.

"I had thought you had grown up gills in there. Are you fine?"

"Nah, Aquaman[1] sucks." he replies boldly. "I am fine." He keeps chanting his last statement over and again in his mind.

"No, you're not. Your eyebrow is doing that twitching thing it does when you're nervous."

"Okay, I give up." He throws up his arms in a surrendering gesture and inhales a deep breath. He needs it. "The DA has been summoned. I am going and you sure as hell aren't going to hold me back this time." he says as much calmly as he can manage.

"If you won't let me make you stay, then I am coming too!"

Colin sighs yet again. "No, you aren't, Deni. You aren't." he whispers and whips out his wand. "_Petrificus Totalus!_"

He petrifies him twice and ties him up for extra measure. Says a quiet apology to his frozen face but doesn't chant a goodbye. Dennis doesn't forgive him for a long time - not for tying him up, because he wouldn't have been his brother if he wouldn't have done that, but for not saying goodbye. Dennis doesn't forgive him for that for a long time.

Colin doesn't forget to grab his camera and little Beatrix's photo. Armed with them and his faithful wand, he heads to fight where a thousand would play out the fate of light and darkness.

**\- н -**

They stumble across each other in the forest and they immediately recognise each other's silhouettes in the semi darkness of the morning. The first thing she does she is to rush to him and hug him with all she has. She doesn't say anything, just holds him, thankful that she has found him at last. It is a moment that she would cherish for an eternity.

Desperate people determined not to focus on the circumstances of their lives do strange things.

"Let's pretend a war isn't going on." she whispers desperately in the folds of his shirt.

"Let's pretend that everything is calm." he whispers back, equally desperate.

"Let's pretend we are okay."

"Let's pretend there is no misery."

And so they pretend. They pretend all this on the leaf strewn, dusty ground and try to think that everything is fine and the world still holds glorious rays of sweet sunshine. Her breath hitches a little as he enters her and she clings on furiously - not being able to think that she could have to let go of him.

Desperate people determined not to focus on the circumstances of their lives do strange things.

Lilith Moon is no exception.

Colin Creevey isn't either.

"I love you." she whispers as they lay side by side. War doesn't give one the assurance of expressing something on a later date after all. Both of them know that.

"And I have always loved you."

He takes a photo of them - two people, one seventeen and the other just on the brink of begin seventeen reflect back in the lens, smiling one last smile before the battle.

**\- н -**

The air around them thrums with energy and cackles with power. It is war, not the DA or their duels in the corridors and therefore there are no second chances to win. There are only two kind of people on the field - the Quick and the Dead. So far they've managed to be the quick ones. They remain side by side hissing spells with such ferocity that at times, even suprises them.

People - both allies and enemies fall around them but they carry on, not trying to pay attention to the fallen. A classmate here, a distant acquaintance there; faces not quite forgotten but still distant and recognisable stare back at the pair with empty lifeless eyes. In the two hours they have fought till now, they feel the rush of adrenaline and the glare of a possibly dark future. Determined not to make the latter a reality, they defend their home with renewed vigour.

"Colin! What are you doing here? You're underage! Go back!" Neville yells.

"Sod it! This is my home and I - we," he points towards Lilith, "will protect it until the last of our breaths."

Desperate people determined not to focus on the circumstances of their lives do strange things.

Twice she saves him from a purple hex and thrice he saves her from nasty curses of various kinds.

It is the fourth time that things go awry.

Desperate people determined not to focus on the circumstances of their lives do strange things.

Colin sees the masked Death Eater hurling a spell towards her from a little backward glance. Even after the previous three times when she has told him to stop defending her, he jumps in front of her. The opponent is fast, too fast for him to create a shield.

Too fast. Tragically fast.

He gets hit with the _Sectusempra _meant for Lilith, but not before he attacks with his own Impediment Jinx. Both the enemies fall with a dull thud on the ground - death and exhaustion don't discriminate between purebloods and mudbloods. Numerous rivulets of blood spread across his shirt and in that moment she stops to hear all the battle going all around her, drops down and cradles his head.

She's too old to improvise and have any blessed attack of accidental magic but too young to just sit there and see life slipping out of him. She berates herself for not learning any of those healing spells and watches helplessly as life ebbs away from his pale face.

Through the curtain of her tears she sees his lips whisper a whisper for the last time.

"_Do not...go gentle...into that good night," _He heaves and wheezes. _"Kick their arses for me. I love...you. " _With that his eyes close on their own accord. A look of tranquillity spreads on his visage and in her mind she knows that he is gone. Gone. Gone. Gone - reunited with his Beatrix. Her minds knows it all but her heart refuses to acknowledge it. 'He's just fallen asleep. That's it. That's it.' her heart shouts out.

"Colin, don't you dare die on me!" she cries out over and again. "Don't you dare!"

She breaks down on the field and falls on his bloodied chest. Millions of tears escape her eyes and some ten minutes later when the battle halts, strong hands grip her arms and pull her away from him. Through her tears she barely makes out Neville and Oliver Wood carrying him away.

"No..."

**\- н -**

**End of chapter notes:**

**I actually cried after writing this.**

**Footnotes:**

**[1] Aquaman: **A cartoon that I particularly dislike.


	8. Epilogue

_A/N: This tale officially ends here. See you soon. And I am really sorry that it's ending here. I am also so sorry for the huge delay in putting this up here._

**\- ****н**** -**

**In Memoriam**

_**Epilogue**_

**\- ****н**** -**

. . ... .

_Do not stand at my grave and weep _

_I am not there. I do not sleep. _

_I am a thousand winds that blow. _

_I am the diamond glints on snow. _

_I am the sunlight on ripened grain. _

_I am the gentle autumn rain. _

_When you awaken in the morning's hush _

_I am the swift uplifting rush _

_Of quiet birds in circled flight. _

_I am the soft stars that shine at night. _

_Do not stand at my grave and cry; _

_I am not there. I did not die._

_. . ... ._

The funeral is silent as it takes place in the open field surrounding the Creevey home. The wind is a little bit dusty; a storm is brewing up. Unspoken words twirl their way through the quiet air, settling in ears and escaping closed mouths. It is hard not to cry but he manages, for now. His aunt comes up to him.

"What a pity." she whispers. He can only nod, biting back his irrational rage at her words. 'She doesn't know anything,' his mind screams because the world seems bleak without his brother. The world is no longer complete. It is shattered and torn beyond repair.

It is raining, but Dennis is remembering a other rain, a other time, a time when Colin was alive.

_The wind rustled the leaves. The squid squirted water playfully as they ran in circles around the vastness of the Black Lake. "Run! She is coming!"Colin shouted to him over the sound of the noisy thunder. They had run until Lilith had caught his brother and tackled him to the ground. There they were, all soiled, muddy and most of all— happy..._

When his turn is called to see Colin for the last time, he doesn't budge away from his place because he is lost in a faraway time in a faraway world where everyone is happy and his brother is alive and he can't bear to see him for the last time. His mother has to gently nudge him to make him walk.

Colin lies with a placid expression on his face. His hair has been combed neatly and his eyes are closed. He is wearing a white shirt, grey trousers and the most prized part of his Hogwarts uniform— his Gryffindor tie. His peculiar and extremely rare white wand is discreetly clasped within the fist of his left hand so that none of their muggle relatives see it. Dennis can just stare and stare and stare. Various relatives are forming a queue behind him, waiting for their own turn. 'Let them wait. He is my brother and I deserve more time,' he whispers too lowly for anyone to hear.

"You runaway," he begins in a whisper, "brother of mine, I will try to forgive you for leaving me behind." Dennis doesn't say a 'goodbye' as he walks away, preferring to watch everything from the recesses of the crowd, away from questioning eyes, away from ignorant remarks. His eyes narrow down on a brown haired girl; it is a girl he knows. A conversation he had earlier with her that day rings through his head.

_The house was eerily silent. There was no usual chitter-chatter and the sound of bustling milk tanks in the Creevey household. A woman – his mother, was crying her heart out. Dennis had arrived just yesterday with a magically cooled trunk containing his brother's body from Hogwarts. Ms. Mcgonagall had personally sent letters to all the parents of the fallen and hence his parents had received the news even before he had stepped in the house. He had met Lilith at Hogwarts; she had been crying her heart out beside Colin's body._

_He could just stand and watch all of them cry and cry and cry. They were crying as if their stream of tears would reach out as a tendril of hope to heaven and pull his brother back to earth, to them. The rush of tears was endless and even if it stopped, it soon resumed. _

"_Dennis," she had said, "I've to tell you something."_

_He had nodded silently, prompting her to continue with tears in his eyes._

"_You had asked how he had died, back at Hogwarts. Didn't you?"_

_He hadn't said anything. "I'll tell you now Dennis, but please don't hate me."_

"_Why will I hate _you_?"_

"_Because he _died saving me._"_

_Whatever he had wanted to say, had died on his tongue and his eyes had widened from the immense shock; it was a terrible feeling. 'Betrayer' his mind had echoed._

"_WHAT? This isn't true. NO, No, no, no, no…You… _YOU _killed him. Not some unknown Death Eater, but YOU. I will NEVER forgive you, LILITH MOON." he had screamed and run away. "I HATE YOU!"_

"_No Dennis, at least just listen to me! I am…"_

_But he hadn't listened and blocked his ears shut and run and run and run. He couldn't have listened to her_; she had killed_ Colin. His mind doesn't tell him to give up his irrationality._

Dennis is jerked back to the present when the brown haired girl clasps his shoulder gently as she stands behind him and watches the casket being lowered into the ground. With a scowl, he shakes her off him. He can't bear to remain near her. As soon as he sees the last glimpse of the coffin, his legs take him away as fast as they can. She doesn't stop him because she knows she can't. She watches him go away and her eyes turn downward. Tears flow freely.

**\- ****н**** \- **

Dennis goes back to Hogwarts; he has a education to complete. He takes back Colin's shoebox collection of photos and matches every corner with its image in the photos. With every match, he feels his heart breaking more and more, until he can't contain himself. Fifth year or not, he is still a child and he sits down and doesn't mind the odd glances thrown at him as some students walk past.

"Goodbye," he mutters quietly. Goodbye, because he knows that one of them has to say it. Goodbye, because it is high time and Colin is never coming back.

"I forgive you, brother," he says as quietly he can and wipes up his tears and stands up. Suddenly he feels a presence behind him and hurriedly turns around, only to find no one.

"But not her"

Colin watches Dennis go back with his invisible eyes. He doesn't want to reveal that he is here, at Hogwarts, out of fear that Dennis would like to think of him as alive when he really is not. He shakes his head, wondering when would his little brother come to his senses and forgive Lilith. It wasn't her fault that he had died.

"He would come around." his old friend, Helena Ravenclaw says.

"I hope he does."

The ghosts float away, lost in a school that's both their own and not quite their own.

**\- ****н**** -**

_Three Years Later…_

_02.05.2001_

_The Leaky Cauldron_

Dennis is at the Leaky with his friend, Joseph from the Ministry to celebrate the Third Anniversary of the fall of Voldemort. He steps aside and watches people sip beer and ale and firewhiskey as freely as possible. The air is hot and stuffy and full of sweatiness. He goes outside; he has someone to remember. As soon as he steps out, he sees a frail woman with a child. 'Must be going back,' he thinks. Their backs are turned to him and he can't see their faces. Suddenly a rocket goes off in the semi-dark night sky with a golden bang and the child jumps and spins around in happiness.

He stops, frozen in his tracks.

Had he just seen little Colin? It couldn't be, but it was, since the boy had the same nose as his brother and he could swear upon that. He had the Creevey hair colour too _— _mousy brown. Wanting to see more of the child, he steps forward until he is just behind the lady. Then he walks forward again, trying to look as discreet as possible and not a pedophile. While walking ahead he turns his head a little and gasps.

It is Lilith. In the distance, another rocket goes off, this time with a blue bang.

"De…Dennis?" she speaks suddenly, spluttering.

"You! You?"

For a moment he wants to run away and never see her again, but he is too curious about the child to not stay. He regains his composure; it is easy, he was never the one to drink too much anyway. But regaining composure doesn't mean he could control his anger, however irrational it was. He quite forgets about the child.

"So you married? Didn't you? After all the sacrifices my brother did and you married some fool? You're the most vicious, cruel_— _"

"Dennis Aldrin Creevey, you stop right now!" she screams, agitated beyond repair. The small boy is frightened by their shouting and he tugs at her trousers meekly. She looks down, softening her stance.

"Ezra, go there," she says as she lifts her finger to point out the direction. "I am just coming."

After he has gone a little distance away, she faces him. "So what were you saying? I am the most vicious, cruel and heartless woman, am I not? Tell you what Dennis, I don't care what you think because today you have shown me that _you _are incapable of forgiving someone for a thing they haven't even done to begin with. You are incapable of letting go, aren't you? You don't understand anything. Why can't you see that it was his choice to die? Don't you think I miss him too; every time I see Ezra, I see him."

Realisation dawns upon him and he sees the error of his ways, but he doesn't let her see that. The weight of his mistakes is too much to bear.

"You mean to say… You mean, his father is Colin?" he whispers.

"Yes" she whispers right back at him.

"Can I, can I just see him, that is if you've forgiven me."

She smiles wryly, knowingly. "Of course, Dennis."

She beckons her son to come back. "Ezra," she says, "meet Dennis. He is your uncle."

Ezra looks at him in wide eyed amazement. "Dennis, meet Ezra Colin Creevey, your long lost two year old nephew."

When Dennis looks at his face thoroughly for the first time; he drops down to his knees. He has seen Colin and his world is complete once more. "Hello there," he says gently. Looking up to Lilith, he can only say one thing.

"Welcome to the Creevey family."

_**-the end-**_

**And it is done!**

**REVIEW. **


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